They let him into the facility quite easily. Searching him at the door, all they found was a briefcase full of decks of playing cards. They snickered to each other (they thought) silently, but he ignored it. He had something he had to do and he couldn't be distracted by his temper tonight.
As he entered the main building, his phone let out a signal that froze the images on all the security cameras in his vicinity. The guards wouldn't notice it - he was alone in the building. After all, he was the absent-minded "new guy", always working late, rushing to meet deadlines and often coming in after hours to finish up this or that. Three months' worth of employment here had made sure his reputation was cemented.
Once in the lift, he worked fast, emptying the decks of cards into pockets hidden in his clothing. By the time he stepped off on his floor, the briefcase was almost empty and his mass had gone up a few kilograms.
As he'd suspected, there was a guard at the door to the office and one other employee within. She was an IT technician and was part of a "graveyard crew" that worked exclusively at night, running diagnostics and doing minor repairs when they had the quiet to do so. He greeted them both and took his seat.
He looked at his desk and realised how much he'd miss it. Framed photos stood around his monitor, while instamatics covered the surface of the screen to his right. Various little ornaments lined the back and left edges of his desk, while a ficus filled the entire corner to the side of it. He sighed and switched on his monitor, called up the floor plan of the building and flipped a switch on his briefcase, turning it to line up with the server room in the back. Having memorised his route, he twisted the combination lock on his briefcase once and waited. Moments later the server and office power fizzed and died, the IT tech gave a shriek and the guard came rushing in to see what had happened.
He was out the door before the others could see him, outer clothing discarded at what was his desk. He turned his coat inside out and it matched his black skinsuit. He ducked into the stairwell, pulling two decks of cards out of their pockets and shoving them into the pouches on the back of each glove, and made his way up. In a minute someone would notice he'd vanished, after finding his clothing, and a building-wide search would commence. THEY might even send out their special guards.
Moments later he found what he wanted: a tiny airduct access between two floors. He pulled the grating out, climbed into the duct and pulled the grate back in behind him. Three metres to a left turn; five to a right; up two metres after that. His route took him to an extraction fan looking out over a room on a floor that was nowhere on the building's floor plan, a floor kept secret by the "accidental" deaths of everyone involved in its installation in the building. It was one among thousands of gruesome facts his job required him to know. No, not job. Work. A job is for a salary, work is what you enjoy, he reminded himself. He enjoyed his work.
He disconnected the extractor's power supply from its motor and removed the fan and housing from its hole. He took a few moments to survey the room beyond and found his target immediately: a bulletproof glass case on a pedestal in the middle of the room. Its contents: the Konstantinos Codices, supposedly so old they predated Mesopotamia, painted on paper of some unknown composition. It was his work to retrieve the Codices and return them to Greece, into the possession of a certain family.
He pulled a tiny torch from a card box and shone it at the floor. Tiny pressure sensors sparkled like rhinestones on a drag queen's dress. It didn't take long to work out the pattern in which they'd been laid. From the same card box he pulled a lens which showed laser beams. They criss-crossed the outer perimeter of the room, getting less and less dense the closer to the case one looked. A second lens magnified the area around the pedestal and he found the last security measure he'd been warned about.
He replaced the magnifying lens, put the laser lens to his eye like a monocle and from a pocket on his left ankle drew four cards. Two each slid into vertical slits in the balls of his shoes. From the right ankle he drew five cards with mirrored backs, pulling a tube of acid glue from his utility box. Taking aim and working as quickly as he could, he glued the five cards to edges of the fan's hole. He gripped his coat's tail and dropped to the floor.
He landed in a crouch and waited, but he'd managed not to trip any alarms. Good. He stepped carefully over a laser beam at his feet, placing the edges of the cards between the pressure sensors. It was slow, but by keeping his clear eye on the floor and the bemonocled eye on the trip beams, he made it to the pedestal. He took a few deep breaths with his eyes closed.
He opened them and examined the slits around the pedestal. If there were to be any weight changes inside the case, two sets of electrified bars would clamp down on the thief's arm and he would be killed. Since this floor didn't exist, the disappearance of said thief would go unnoticed.
From a pocket on his thigh he pulled a card with a razor-keen edge. Keener, in fact. He used it to cut a hole in the side of the glass case, levering the cutout out of the hole and placing it on top of the case. From the small of his back he pulled a deck-sized stack of plastic sheets. A flick of his wrist and they lengthened, widened and heightened to form a codex sized carry-case. He opened and placed it on top of the case as well, then drew two blank decks of cards from the same pocket.
He took a breath and held it, aimed, and flicked his wrist. One of the decks went spinning into the case and into the edge of a codex, taking its place on its pressure sensor. He reached in for the codex, placed it in the carry-case and repeated the process. Only once both codices were in the box did he breathe again.
He sealed the box and shoved it into a pocket running down the spine of the skinsuit. As he turned back to the extraction duct the laser beams disappeared and a section of the wall behind him slid open. A smoking canister hurtled into the room and without thinking he kicked it back out. There was a series of surprised grunts and a muffled "woof" as the canister exploded. He pulled out a deck of cards and dove for the extractor. He hit the floor of the duct rolling, fanning out the cards as he rolled and forming a bulletproof seal behind him. Some papery "thwacks" told him the wall held and he scrambled back to his entry point.
At the door out of the stairwell he paused to catch his breath and listen for the sounds of pursuit. None so far - nice! He opened the door a crack and almost lost an eye as a bullet zinged in. He pulled out a deck of razor cards and a deck of shield cards. He cut the shield deck and fanned the cards to form a dinner plate-sized circle of the cardboard. He took a few quick breaths and burst into the passage, hurling razor cards at whatever guns he saw and deflecting those he had yet to get to. The force of the bullets hitting the cards started numbing his arm, so he hurled the disk at a guard, catching the man's cheek and knocking him backwards. Still flicking cards at guns, he ripped out a deck of glue cards and started flinging those at the guards' eyes. He bought himself enough time to break through their ranks. As he passed the corner he threw a special card at the wall, where its edged lodged in the plaster. A timer counted down on its face. He kept running, ripping open pockets for easy access to his cards and took the first lift he found to the basement.
As the lift dropped he set up a wall of shield cards with gaps in for throwing razor, glue and "flash" cards at the "enemy". Poor things were only following orders, it wouldn't do to kill them because they're following orders.
His precautions proved founded. As the doors slid the interior of the lift was filled with bullets. He gave them a few moments to empty their clips, fanning a few glue and razor cards in his left hand. As the first clip emptied, he reopened a slit in the wall and started hurling cards at guns and eyes. Every few cards he threw at them was a flash card, sparking of tiny magnesium flashes before they hit anyone. He dislodged the central section of his wall and used it as a riot shield to storm the guards. Those who'd avoided the flashes rushed him and he resorted to punching and kicking to defend himself. He shifted his gloves slightly and the cards in them slid over his knuckles, creating boxing gloves that he used to great effect. He just made it to the door when he heard a gun chambering a round behind him. He froze, turned slowly and looked straight into the most beautiful blue eyes he'd ever seen on a man. He raised his hands as instructed and waited for the man to twist his head to his shoulder mic. A moment later the man dropped, knocked out by the deck of cards that hit him in the temple. The thief put his hand back up, the cards sliding back into his glove like a paper laser. He sighed, saddened that he'd never get to know the blue-eyed guard.
From the basement, his escape was almost too easy. He encountered two more guards, both of whom he snuck up on and knocked out with his glove cards.
Two weeks later he disembarked a Greek plane at Athens International Airport. His pick-up driver was already waiting for him and they were soon on their way to his client. Just outside of the city the tinted windows rolled up and lights and airconditioning whirred to life. He knew precisely where they were going, having worked it out and looked it up the last time he'd met his client, but said nothing, sipping a tiny glass of ouzo as they travelled. Half an hour and another ouzo later they pulled up to a mansion. The driver offered to carry his luggage, but he declined, keeping the Konstantinos Codices and case of cards with him.
He met the old man in his study, a room decorated with Greek Orthodox iconography and lined with books in display cases. The deal was concluded quickly, him exchanging the Codices for the second half of his payment. Before he left, he asked, "Mr Tatoupolis, why did you want these codices so badly? Simply to add to your collection?"
The old man smiled. "Not really," he said. "My grandfather found them in a cave in the Tigris Valley and was forced to sell them when his fortune was taken from him. I'm simply reclaiming what belongs in my family."
The thief nodded. His suspicions confirmed, he shook the Konstantinos' hand and left. He boarded the first flight back home and once boarded, settled in for a long nap. His kitchen needed some remodelling, and he could think of a few orphanages in the City that needed help. There were also some shelters and animal rescue organisations who needed new facilities...
He passed out making his list before the plane had even left Greek airspace.
